New study reveals that women are better at tasting wine than men

What's great food without something equally as moreish to wash it down with? I'm talking about wine, of course. Everyone’s feigned some knowledge when tasting expensive wine, especially while seated at a nice restaurant. The first time I had to do that at a restaurant the waiter presented the wine and poured "the first taste," I sat there like a lemon wondering in my head why the waiter hadn't left yet. Anyway, we live and we learn.

If you’re out to dinner and the waiter brings along a selection of wine to taste, it’s best to have a woman in your party take a sip. That’s according to a new study published in the journal Food Quality and Preference suggesting that men have a strong emotional reaction to the taste of wine, but struggle to discern the difference.

The study queried 208 participants, asking them to take part in blind taste tests of six different types of wines: one rosé, two whites, and three reds. The researchers hoped to gain some insight into the relationship between taste and the way wine makes you feel, as well as the differences across gender and age demographics.

They found that, in general, men felt stronger emotional responses to every wine that was tasted; women, however, were more attuned to the differences between the types of wine. These findings corroborate a long history of previous research that suggests the same - women are just better at wine tasting than men. Some studies suggest that women’s sense of smell is sharper, which could affect their ability to taste.

In fact, a study from Brazil showed that women might actually have more olfactory cells than men, making them biologically superior sniffers.

“If you take someone who is in training to be a sommelier or cicerone, and if they are focusing on becoming attuned to what is in the beer or wine - the smells and the tastes - women may have an edge on discerning low-level underlying cues,” Dr Paul Breslin, a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, told VinePair.

Women tend to consume more wine than men, as well. According to an analysis from 2016, women consume 57 percent of all wine bottles sold in the United States. This newest study also showed that certain types of wines are associated with eliciting certain emotions.

Fruity and floral blends tended to inspire positive emotions, while licorice, clove, and vanilla notes inspired negative or neutral emotions. But no matter the taste, a woman’s palate was always more precise. Any men out there sour after nearing this do not fret, because both women and men can lose weight drinking wine.

That's the conclusion of this experiment at Washington State University, where Professor of animal sciences Min Du and visiting scientist Songbo Wang were looking at how best to convert excess white fat into calorie-burning beige fat. Rather than using humans and wine, they used mice and grapes, but the results are still there for all to see.

“Polyphenols in fruit, including resveratrol, increase gene expression that enhances the oxidation of dietary fats so the body won’t be overloaded. They convert white fat into beige fat that burns lipids off as heat – helping to keep the body in balance and prevent obesity and metabolic dysfunction.”

When it comes down to it, it may take a little more than a single rose to get a flat stomach, but at least it means you can drink it while you lose weight.